End of the regular season, here come the playoffs

Layne, Emily and Mary Rolston

First, I meant to do two postings last week, one for the family weekend which included a beautiful day of family tennis after the Willamette match.  We had the Minuth's, Rolston's, Scott's, Palkowitz's out playing with Emily and Layne taking the tie break tournament over a strong Art and Hannah Palkowitz team in the finals; not to be stopped, the team all left and even I couldn't outlast the tennis endurance of the Reed, Megin, Mary and Layne; what fun!

Hannah and Art Palkowitz

This weekend we split the team to finish our regular season with everyone playing counting matches.  We were a little short handed with Emily finishing her thesis and Charlotte preparing for the chorale concert Saturday night.  Still, we had some very good tennis on campus as Spokane CC came down for an exhibition.  Maddy and Hannah lost to a solid team in doubles while Sara and Liv got a win before Liv continued her day with a straight set singles win.  Not finished, she also participated in the evening concert, a rare performance of Swedish music that had never been performed in the US before.  Oh yeah, Liv is an amazing violinist in the student orchestra!  Maddy continued to shake off the rust of a week off and got going in the second set before losing 6-0,6-4 at #1. Sara had a tough first set before shin problems limited her movement and she retired.  Hannah leveled the match with a quick 6-0,6-0 win at #2 singles.  It was just great to get matches in at home with the rest of the team on the road in Portland.

Friday against George Fox, we beat the rain and the Bruins with a great doubles sweep.  The match really turned our way when Maggie and Kate teamed up at 3 and individually and as a team displayed how much their doubles has improved with an emphatic win that pumped up Erin and Morgan at 2 and Alyssa and Courtney at 1.  Hadley lost a tough 3rd set tie break and Kate lost two hard fought sets but everyone else won except Erin who didn't get to finish as the match was decided when the rain came down as she was about to split sets and was playing really well.  So, we came off with at 6-2 win against a good young Bruin team.

Saturday felt almost like a home match at LC in their new bubble.  The Wilsonville HS tennis team came to watch a local college match along with men's tennis alum Kurt Kasad and Kate had a ton of family there;  not to mention three of our most prolific women's tennis alums; Hadley DeBree (2010 Bio and Env Studies grad working on Environmental Education for Americorps in Idaho), Divneet Kaur (2010 Religion grad currently at OHSU med school), and Lynn Greer McKelvy (1988 Math grad, 2004 Whitman Hall of Fame inductee).  All three are members of our Century club with over 100 career wins and Lynn finished as high as #4 in the nation in singles and #3 in doubles!

Courtney and Alyssa in dubs (from TX)

The match again had us switching up doubles and Courtney and Alyssa dominated at 1 while Morgan today teamed with Kate to win at 2 and at 3 Erin and Hadley had a great run of games in the middle and stayed positive and focused the whole way but just couldn't sustain the consistency to pull it out.  So, up 2-1, Morgan went to work and I was so impressed not just with the scoreline of 6-0,6-0, but with how she played her tennis constructed points and finished clinically.  Courtney and Alyssa were on similar paths to efficient wins over quality opponents and they each came off the court about the same time 6-0,6-3.  Again, Kate was battling and had an interesting matchup at #4 which went back and forth before she lost 7-6,6-1, but I saw things from Kate that we've been working on and the score here is a bit deceptive as she played really well in many areas.  Hadley at 5 took Morgan's court and followed her lead with the performance of the day bouncing back from doubles to get the 6-0,6-0 win!  Maggie was nearly there but her opponent at 6 fought through tough deuce games with Mags up 5-0 in the second which gave her some momentum to 5-4 before Maggie finished up with consistency and winners to seal the match.

Maggie returning

Many of us enjoyed getting back home in time to see the concert and enjoy the wonderful Spring weather in Walla Walla.

So, we concluded the regular season at 10-2 in conference with a second place finish, the highest in my 4 seasons at Whitman (3 3rd place finishes) and we go into next week's conference tournament with the second seed and great confidence in our ability to win back to back matches against the best teams in the northwest to earn the AQ for NCAA regionals in May.

The schedule of the tournament in McMinnville is:
Saturday 10am #1 Linfield vs #4 (TBA -probably Willamette)
Saturday 2pm #2 WHITMAN vs #3 Whitworth

Sunday 10am Final match

If you plan on coming and have questions, let me know, we're very excited for this opportunity to play Whitworth again and hopefully earn a spot in the finals.

John